South Pass

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South Pass
At the South Pass, looking west

At the South Pass, looking west

Compass direction east west
Pass height 2265  m
county Fremont County , Wyoming ( USA )
Watershed Sweetwater RiverNorth Platte RiverPlatte RiverMissouri RiverMississippi River Pacific CreekLittle Sandy CreekBig Sandy RiverGreen RiverColorado River
expansion WY-28.svg Wyoming Highway 28
Mountains Wind River Range , Antelope Hills ( Rocky Mountains )
map
South Pass (USA West)
South Pass
Coordinates 42 ° 22 '20 "  N , 108 ° 54' 35"  W Coordinates: 42 ° 22 '20 "  N , 108 ° 54' 35"  W.
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The South Pass (German " Südpass ") in the US state of Wyoming was the first crossing over the ridge of the Rocky Mountains that could be passed by caravans and covered wagons . It became the focal point of all trade and settlement flows during the settlement of the American West between 1830 and 1869.

The Oregon Trail , the California Trail , the Mormon Trail and the Pony Express ran over the South Pass . Today the pass is insignificant.

geography

The South Pass crosses the continental divide of North America south of the Wind River Range in the US state of Wyoming. Between the Sweetwater River , which flows east to the Platte River and ultimately the Mississippi River , and the headwaters of Pacific Creek , which flows over Little Sandy Creek , Big Sandy River , Green River and Colorado River to the Gulf of California and the Pacific Ocean , there is only a wide, gentle pass.

South of the pass is the Great Divide Basin , an area without drainage.

history

Indians from the Cheyenne and Crow peoples knew the pass from time immemorial. The central parts of the Rocky Mountains were unknown to whites until well into the 19th century. The British, especially those of the Hudson's Bay Company , had explored the Canadian north well; the Spanish of the Viceroyalty of New Spain and the Mexicans who became independent from 1821 knew the south .

In the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the United States bought the French colony of Louisiana west of the Mississippi River and, in 1804–1806, advanced over the Rocky Mountains for the first time with the Lewis and Clark Expedition . Lewis and Clark climbed the mountains on a northern route at Lolo Pass and brought the news east that the Rocky Mountains were largely impassable. They could only be crossed and the areas of the west reached on foot, without heavy loads.

As 1812/13 six Trapper of the American Fur Company of their outpost Astoria over Idaho in the United States came back, showed them the way Indians over the South Pass. A St. Louis newspaper reported their trip in June 1813 and mentioned that it was

on the whole route there is no obstacle that anyone would dare to call a mountain, quite apart from the fact that it is the most direct and shortest path from here [St. Louis] to the mouth of the Columbia River.

The knowledge was lost, however, because the Astorians formulated their official report so vaguely that the location and nature of the pass remained unknown. The reason is speculated that the American Fur Company did not act in the areas of the central Rocky Mountains and did not want to make the knowledge of the pass available to its competitors.

In February 1824, the trapper Jedediah Smith moved west from the Black Hills on behalf of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company and had the Cheyenne and Crow show him the area and the South Pass. He immediately recognized the importance of the passport. The company expanded its hunting grounds to the west of the Rocky Mountains, one of their trappers, Jim Bridger , discovered the Great Salt Lake, and the company's fur hunters made the catch of their lives on the rivers of the region.

The independent Franco-Canadian fur hunter Etienne Provost was among the pioneers at the South Pass and the Great Salt Lake. Reports that he was the first to reach both locations, however, are almost certainly inaccurate. They go back to his own testimony, which was published long after his death in 1905 and which, according to other, confirmed information, is unreliable.

1830 brought William Sublette the first covered wagon through the South Pass, he transported on the way to the so-called Rendezvous inventories and exchange goods to the trappers in the mountains and took on the way back the skins for sale in St. Louis.

The Oregon Trail ran over the South Pass

In 1836 Marcus Whitman moved with his family as a missionary over the pass to Oregon , in 1841 John Bidwell went with a small group of settlers over the Rocky Mountains to California. It was not until May 1842, however, before Marcus Whitman led the first large-scale settlers' trek with 100 covered wagons on what was soon to be known as the Oregon Trail over the pass. Around the agreement between the United States and Great Britain on the joint settlement of Oregon in the Oregon Compromise in 1846 , the numbers continued to rise. In 1848, followers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , also known as Mormons, crossed the pass in search of a place where they could practice their young religion without discrimination. They founded the city of Salt Lake City on the Great Salt Flat and were followed by other followers on the Mormon Trail over the next several years .

In 1849, word got around that gold was found in California the previous year, the California gold rush began, and people poured over the South Pass on the California Trail . In 1860 the Pony Express also ran over the pass and in 1867 the top of the pass saw its own little gold rush. Gold diggers established three settlements in the immediate vicinity of the pass: South Pass City , Atlantic City and Miner's Delight .

The importance of the South Pass collapsed suddenly when the first transcontinental rail link was opened in 1869 . It no longer led over the South Pass, but runs further south. Nevertheless, there was temporarily a railroad over the South Pass: From 1962 to 1983 an industrial line ran from the west over the pass to the mine in Atlantic City on the east side.

The South Pass today

Today only the small Wyoming Highway 28 leads over the traffic-insignificant pass, which has been a National Historic Landmark since 1961 .

Atlantic City, so named because the place is on the east side of the pass, still exists today as a settlement with 39 inhabitants (as of 2000). South Pass City and Miner's Delight are deserted, South Pass City is an open-air museum with 25 restored houses, Miner's Delight is a ghost town .

The Continental Divide Trail , a long-distance hiking trail of almost 5000 km (3100 miles) along the continental divide , runs across the pass, along the top of the pass .

The pass was granted National Historic Landmark status in January 1961 and was listed as a structure on the National Register of Historic Places in October 1966 .

Web links

References

  1. O. Ned Eddins: Astorians and Pacific Fur Company ( Memento of the original from April 14, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , on thefurtrapper.com @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.thefurtrapper.com
  2. Hiram Martin Chittenden, The American Fur Trade of the Far West , Francis P. Harper, New York, 1902, unaltered reprint of the 2nd revised edition from 1936 by Augustus M. Kelley, Fairfield, New Jersey, 1979, ISBN 0-678 -01035-8 , p. 280, note C with further evidence
  3. http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=312269&nseq=14
  4. ^ South Pass on the National Register of Historic Places , accessed March 14, 2020.
    Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: Wyoming. National Park Service , accessed March 14, 2020.